Newfoundland & Labrador

This memorial is dedicated to those from the Community of Petty Harbour/Maddox Cove who served in all Wars. It was erected by the War Memorial Committee.

Erected by Royal Canadian Legion Branch No. 33, this memorial is dedicated to the local war dead and veterans of the First and Second World Wars. It is made of grey granite, standing some 10 feet tall, 3 feet wide and 12 inches thick.

The Star of the Sea Parish Hall was erected in 1949 as a tribute to those from the area who served in the Second World War. A brick monument with a marble plaque and cross is located outside the hall.

Dedicated on 17 September 1995, this memorial was erected by Royal Canadian Legion Branch No. 33, and is dedicated to the local veterans of the First and Second World Wars, the Korean War and peacekeeping duties. The Memorial is erected on the former Legion Building grounds. The former legion was destroyed by a fire in 1979. A new Legion was later re-built at another location in Placentia.

The Placentia First World War Memorial was unveiled on June 3, 1920, in memory of the young men from the Parish who lost their lives in the First World War (1914-1918). It was the first Monument erected in Newfoundland to honour the men who served in the First World War. The pedestal is fashioned from Rutland Italian Marble in which several inscriptions are carved, including the names of the 33 men from the Placentia Parish who died in World War I. On the pedestal stands a life size statue of the Saviour carved from Carrara marble. The Monument weighs over 12 tonnes.

Unveiled by the city of Mount Pearl and Royal Canadian Legion Branch No. 36 on 29 October 1994, this memorial is dedicated to the memory of the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War.

On February 24, 1920, the question of a suitable war memorial for Bell Island was raised in a meeting of the Great War Veterans Association at the Star Hall and a fundraising campaign was started to raise money for club rooms for Veterans. Instead of club rooms, a monument was erected and unveiled on June 15, 1921.

In September 1948, the Great War Veterans Association began construction of their Memorial Building. The club rooms were designed to form a memorial to the memory of those gallant men from the Iron Isle who paid the supreme sacrifice in the Second World War.

A resolution to merge with the Canadian Legion was passed unanimously on October 10, 1949, by the Dominion Conference of the Great War Veterans Association and on July 7, 1951, the Canadian Legion Memorial Building opened. A fire destroyed the Memorial Building on March 8, 1958. The official opening of the new Legion Memorial Building was on November 10, 1958. 

Nova Scotia-based Heritage Memorials constructed a tomb of an unknown soldier for the Newfoundland National War Memorial in St. John's. The 3,600-kilogram sarcophagus portion of the tomb was installed at the base of the war memorial on April 9, 2024. The remains of an unknown Newfoundland soldier who died in the First World War were repatriated from a battlefield in northern France and placed inside the tomb.

The vault, carved from black granite that was mined from a Quebec quarry, is inscribed with the words "Known Unto God" in English and French. A forget-me-not flower — a symbol of remembrance for the Newfoundland Regiment — is also carved into the granite. The province's coat-of-arms is carved into the front of the tomb.

The cover is carved from Labrador granite called "Blue Eyes" and weighs roughly 1,100 kilograms.

Margaret O’Brien commissioned the family war memorial grotto after losing four of her six sons over a period of two years during the Second World War. She is recognized on a plaque at Signal Hill Road in St. John's as Newfoundland's "Most bereaved mother for World War II". Her husband Maurice passed away in 1942 between losing their third and fourth sons.

The grotto is a free-standing stone structure with a statue of Anne, the patron saint of mothers, resting on a pillar with the names of the O'Brien men who died in the war. Mrs. O'Brien herself paid for its creation in the mid-1950s. It was built by the father and son team Richard (senior and junior) Mahon, formerly of Logy Bay. Over the years its foundation had shifted, leaving the structure unstable and the statue of St. Anne badly damaged. In 2020, the Logy Bay Development Association, a community non-profit, raised funds and contracted the Grand Concourse Authority to stabilize the foundation and restore the grotto and statue to its original condition. At this time, the spelling of the family name on the memorial was corrected from O’Brine to O’Brien.

The Veterans Memorial Committee of the Development Association created the nearby storyboard of the family's history in 2002 to ensure the town remembered why the memorial was there. Maurice Jr. served with the Royal Navy and his ship was torpedoed in the northeast Atlantic on December 2, 1940. Michael worked on an American merchant ship and his vessel was torpedoed on March 30, 1941. David served with the Royal Navy Auxiliary and accidently drowned on September 28, 1942, in St. John's Harbour when his ship was in port. Denis served in the Royal Navy and returned home safely. John briefly enlisted with the Royal Navy, but his health prevented him from going overseas. He then joined the Newfoundland Militia and served until April 30, 1941.

The committee's research of James, the third son lost, took an unexpected turn. The family thought he was lost at sea, but the researcher found a detailed account of what had happened to him and a picture of his grave site. In June 1930, he moved to Boston to be with his oldest brother William, and to seek work as a fisherman. In the Spring of 1942, James was with the American Merchant Marine aboard the SS Ballot as part of Convoy PQ13. The Ballot was bombed on March 28, as the family had believed, but that wasn't the end of James's story. He was one of 15 crew members to survive in lifeboats and was picked up by the SS Induna. This ship was sunk two days later and once again James ended up in a lifeboat. He spent days injured and exposed to the icy Arctic Ocean before being picked up by a Russian minesweeper. He died in a Murmansk hospital a week later and was buried nearby.

During the Second World War, there were various messes around the city, but none were designated for naval officers, so Captain Rollo Mainguy decided to establish a Seagoing Officers Club. The Crow's Nest opened on January 27, 1942, as a safe haven for naval officers fighting in the Battle of the Atlantic. The club's name is believed to have originated when a Lieutenant Colonel in the Canadian Army, puffing and winded when he arrived at the top of the club's 59 steps, mopped his forehead and gasped, “Crikey, this is a snug little Crow’s Nest.” His companions were delighted with the observation and the name stuck.

On opening night the club had a contest for who could hammer a spike into the floor faster and it was won by the captain of HMCS Spikenard. They were torpedoed off Iceland on the night of February 10. During the war the club had a brass ring put around the spike in the floor and then after the war it was removed from the floor and put on the wall where it still remains.

As a memento before entering the theatre of war, many men visiting the club would scratch the name of their ship on the walls. Captain Mainguy gave each ship a space on the wall so they could put their gun shield there. Each ship had their own unique crest that they usually put on the gun shield of the four inch gun in the bow of their ship. Each gun shield in the club has its own story.

At the end of war, U-190 surrendered off the coast of Newfoundland on May 8, 1945, to HMCS Victoriaville and HMCS Thorlock. U-190 was brought into the Bay Bulls harbour because the submarine had sunk HMSC Esquimalt on April 16 and they were was afraid if they brought the crew to Halifax so soon after that, there could be some sort of public incident. The periscope was removed from the submarine and still remains in the club.